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Stress on voluntary I-T compliance

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Our Regional Bureau Ahmedabad
Last Updated : Mar 18 2013 | 3:47 PM IST
The Income Tax department is initiating several measures to move towards voluntary compliance of income tax. Further, the search and seizures will be reduced to bare minimum, said U P Singh, director general of income tax, (investigation), Ahmedabad.
 
Speaking at an open house forum organised by the Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) on problems faced by the IT of assessees in Ahmedabad on Friday, Singh said: "We have been making a concerted effort in moving towards voluntary compliance. Between April and February this fiscal, the search and seizures taken up have been half of that taken up in the same period of the previous fiscal."
 
Singh said that between April 2002 and February 2003, 30 search and seizures were carried out in the state. Compared to this during the current fiscal there have been only 18 search and seizures.
 
Singh stated that the voluntary undisclosed and undeclared income during the period from April 2002 to February 2003 was 39 crore, the voluntary undisclosed income for the period from April 2003 to February 2004 stands at Rs 49 crore.
 
"The increase has just been Rs 10 crore, but it is worth noting that search and seizure operations have been reduced to almost half, and will come down further in subsequent years," Singh said.
 
He divided tax payers into four categories. The first category comprises those who are very conscious of paying taxes and will never be summoned by the department.
 
The second type, he said, were those who were responsible, but for various reasons, were not paying the full tax. "In such cases, we will tell them that we have information of almost all their financial transactions and they ought to pay up," Singh said.
 
The third group are who feel that they can evade taxes and that the department is unaware of their entire income. DGIT said that such people will be asked to pay tax or face severe action.
 
"However, we are targeting the fourth. Although this is a small group, there is a deliberate attempt to evade tax partially or fully," he said.

 
 

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First Published: Mar 13 2004 | 12:00 AM IST

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